


bloodflood

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean are hunting a case in the cold Minnesota wilderness when an unexpected friend turns up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bloodflood

It's really fucking _cold_ for November. Cold enough that it makes Dean's joints ache in unusual places like they tend to do nowadays; not that he'd admit that to Sam. It's not like he needs another reason for Sam to doubt his resolve on hunts.

"Dean, your head's in the clouds," Sam had informed him as they drove back from a shifter case in Colorado. "Getting sidetracked during case-searching, checking your phone every two seconds like a lovesick puppy--you think I don't know what this is about?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean had snapped, ignoring the uncomfortable tightening in his chest.

Sam had licked his lips impatiently, then flattened them into a thin, wry line. He'd searched for words for few minutes before he'd said, almost carefully, "If you want him so badly, Dean, why'd you kick him out?"

"This isn't about him," Dean had replied, his self-consciousness sharpening his voice more than he'd intended. In reply to Sam's raised eyebrow, he'd added a bit more heatedly, "It's _not_."

"Whatever, Dean."

It's two days later now and it's colder than Dante's balls-deep circle of hell outside; Dean absently teethes at the rim of his paper coffee cup as he flips through the pages Sam had printed at the library, ignoring the way Sam's watching him with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Sam makes a couple of obtrusive noises, shifting in place, before he eventually says, with definite sarcasm, "Thanks for coming with me to the library to you know, _help._ "

"Wasn't feeling up to it," Dean replies apologetically, refusing to look up. Truth is, he'd hoped for an hour to talk to Cas on the phone, check up on him, see if he's doing okay. But every time he'd scrolled over Cas' number, he'd lost the nerve. He'd ended up drinking three cups of shitty motel coffee in a pair of ratty sweats, warding off the cold with two blankets wadded around him, and fitfully drifting in and out of sleep.

"Yeah, okay."

"So we're looking at a potential werewolf?" Dean asks as Sam's eyes drift to the phone face-down on the bedside table.

"Did you talk to Cas?"

"Could be a pack of them," Dean continues, leafing through the pages and frowning down at the list of victims' names. "The killings are sporadic though. Usually if it's a pack you've got a lot of vics concentrated in one place. So we're looking at a lone ranger, or maybe an omega."

"Dean." Sam's voice is quiet.

" _What,_ Sam?" Dean snaps, glancing up for the first time to scowl in Sam's direction. "No, I didn't talk to Cas, alright? I'm sure he's fine. Dude's busy."

Sam's expression is much softer now, his shoulders no longer stiff with annoyance. He searches Dean's expression openly, and Dean fights the childish, irritable urge to nestle himself in the blankets away from his scrutiny.

"Soon we're going to have to talk about this, Dean," Sam says.

"The case?" Dean replies. "That's what I'm saying, man. More people are getting killed the more you stand around talking about feelings. Are you in or what?"

"Says the one who did _no_ research," Sam says with a bitchy glare, which sets them off into a squabble that mercifully leads the conversation away from Cas.

Inevitably, though, Sam brings it up again. They're on their way to the hunt and Dean's bundled up in four layers chattering even against the Impala's rattling radiator because _fuck,_ it's _freezing_ outside. Dean hates winter, hates the cold, hates _hunting_ in the cold and driving in snow, hates the creaking of his bones when he falls asleep at night and the dry skin that breaks out in raw red patches across his knuckles. Something about the winters, especially up north, Dean can't seem to shake from his bones until months later.

"So about Cas," Sam says, tightening his gloved hands on the wheel.

Dean groans and pitches his head back. "Sam. We're on a case, alright? Can we not talk about this now?"

"Well, we've gotta talk about it sometime," Sam answers, his mouth dipping in a small frown. "Considering it's gotten to a point where it's actually affecting how you hunt."

"Not true."

"Totally true, Dean."

"I'm just worried about him," Dean says with a shrug, and Sam nods. "But I'm always worried about him. Not like much has changed, so there's no point talking about it." Dean turns to look out the window, at the way the ice breaks in small spiderwebs against the glass, but he doesn't miss the odd look Sam shoots him sideways.

\---

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Dean is _shaking,_ crouched in the shabby shelter of two gnarled, leafless bushes with Sam kneeling by his side.

"Positive," Sam replies, his teeth chattering on the _tuh_ sound of the word. The tip of his nose is already bright red, his cheeks ruddy with the cold, and some buried part of Dean nags at him that if they don't get back soon, Sam'll catch cold. "Couple in one of the cabins out here reported one of the town pariahs suddenly going into town these past couple weeks. Did some background-digging and the guy filed a report for assault two weeks ago. No bite reported, but there never usually is. Case still open. Mrs. Lahey says he comes this way every--"

"Right, right," Dean mutters, feeling properly lectured. His eyes water painfully as a bitter wind kicks up gales of thin snow, and he squints to see the bridge not a football field's length away, the crusted snow on its path worn down with tire tracks. The river not five feet below is completely frozen over, probably completely to the bottom in cold like this.

"Very Jack London," Dean comments through numb lips. "No dogs though." Well. There's a werewolf, he supposes.

"You're a London fan?" Sam asks in surprise.

Dean shrugs. "Eh."

A sudden movement catches their eye and they crouch down instinctively lower, Dean's finger cocking on his gun. If he squints, he can discern a dark, huddled figure making slow progress toward the bridge, dragging a load behind him through the snow. In the illumination of the dim streetlights of the bridge, Dean can make out a distinct dark discoloration, smearing a path behind the load that the man is dragging. Blood.

"Got him," Sam mutters, and creeps out from behind the bush, Dean following, their boots crunching softly in the snow underfoot.

At the sound of their footsteps--or perhaps their scent--the man dragging the body snaps his head up; just in time for Dean to see the distortion of his face, twisted into canine contortions, his lips curled over craggy teeth.

Sam and Dean both raise guns and fire, and the man snarls and drops his cargo, taking off for the bridge. Dean sprints after him, Sam close on his heels, and Sam is shouting something at Dean but he can't hear it against the howling whistle of the wind, boxing his face with a cold so sharp it's _blinding._

Dean charges onto the bridge and whips wildly around, but there's no man in sight; as if he'd just disappeared. Dean whirls to look for Sam but is promptly grabbed from behind and tackled to the ground with a sharp snarl and a pulse of hot, moist breath on his neck. Dean dimly thinks he hears Sam yell his name as he scrambles under the werewolf's scrabbling claws, feeling its rancid breath on his face as it snaps his teeth close to his neck and digs its nails into his forearms.

"Sa- _aam!_ " Dean yells, going for a knee to the balls, but the werewolf bears down on him, the audible snap of his teeth ringing in Dean's ears. Almost more deafening is the sudden gunshot directly right of Dean, and the werewolf yelps before collapsing on top of Dean, motionless. Dean grunts in disgust and kicks the corpse off himself, and a hand is extended to him.

"Cutting it close there, Sammy," Dean says, his voice shaking as he takes the hand, but when he's pulled to his feet a strange shock goes through him at the familiar sight of bright blue eyes and dark mop of hair pushed under a cap, nose and cheeks flushed with red from the cold.

"Hello, Dean," Cas says, and the breath pours out of him in the light of the streetlights.

"C-C---" Dean thinks it must be cold and shock that causes him to stammer out Cas' name. " _Cas?_ "

Cas purses his lips and looks about as happy to see him as he did a few weeks back.

"What the--what the hell are you doing here?"

"I was on a hunt," Cas says, tilting his head almost irritably. "But you and Sam interrupted it."

"You _\--you_ were interrupt--okay, first off, this was _our_ case, and secondly…I mean, Cas, you don't even _hunt_." It must also be the cold that instills the bizarre urge to crush Cas tightly in his arms, feel his warmth crowd into every crevice in his body.

"I do now," Cas replies, pointedly holding up his gun. "You…you weren't supposed to be here."

"Gee, thanks for the warm welcome," Dean snaps, more hurt than angry. "I'm really fucking _tickled_ to see you too."

Cas looks at him with sad, grim eyes, and his lips look even drier and more chapped than they usually do. Stubble dusts his jaw, and he seems older somehow.

"Dean!" he can hear Sam yelling from a ways off.

"How'd you even find this case anyway?" Dean asks, ignoring Sam.

"I saw there was a series of killings, did some digging, found that there's a pack that's been hunting here for a few years now. Figured I'd check it out," Cas says.

"Pack?" Dean echoes, and he hears Sam scream, much more loudly, _"Dean!_ " and in the same moment, Cas disappears from eyesight, swallowed in a dark blur of snarls and fur. He processes Cas' cry of pain for just a moment before something crashes into his side, knocking him breathless. Something slashes into his arm, sharp and warm, and Dean fumbles for his gun and pulls the trigger against the werewolf's chest, hearing a soft whine of pain before it crumples to the ground.

Dean whirls and has time to watch Cas' head crack into the concrete side of the bridge, watches Cas go as limp as a rag doll at the force of the hit, and he hears someone scream, _"Cas!_ " before realizing belatedly that it was himself.

The she-wolf with her claws fisted into Cas' jacket whips to snarl at Dean, and Dean raises his gun quick as a whip, aiming with deadly precision, but she's quicker. With hardly a gasp of effort, she pitches Cas' body over the side of the bridge, and Dean hears a sharp crack and is unsure of whether it's the kick of his gun or Cas hitting the ice.

The she-wolf is dead before she hits the ground and suddenly Sam is there, way too close, saying urgently, "Dean," but Dean shoves blindly past him and scrambles to look over the railing of the bridge, his only thought, _No, no, no, no, no--_

By some miracle, the ice hadn't broken all the way through, and Dean thanks God in a jagged breath that the ice is thick enough to sustain the force of impact as he stares uncomprehendingly at Cas' lifeless form crumpled on the sheet of ice five feet below, a dark, foreboding trickle of red pooling out from his head like some sort of halo.

"Holy shit," Sam breathes as he stares down, and then says, "Dean--" but Dean's already gone again, taking off down the bridge, the spike of adrenaline in his blood making him impervious to the cold. He's already shedding his jacket by the time he hits the riverbank, and Sam grabs his arm and _yanks._

"No way in fuck, I'm not letting you go out there."

"And what, leave him to die?" Dean snaps, already shedding another layer.

"I won't lose the both of you," Sam says in practically a snarl, his hand an iron vice on Dean's elbow. "Fuck no, Dean. The ice won't be able to hold two men."

"He hit the ice and it held him just fine. I'm not leaving him." He yanks away from Sam, and he hears Sam bark, threateningly, " _Dean,_ " but he's already venturing out onto the ice surface, wincing as it creaks under his boots.

Dean treads as quickly and softly as possible, well and poundingly, achingly aware that the ice could give at any minute, depending on how thin it was in places. Poundingly, achingly aware that Cas could already be dead, just when he'd gotten him back.

His footsteps are even softer the closer he gets to Cas, and his heart catches in his throat as one patch splinters under his weight, and he wobbles sideways and hears Sam yell, " _Dean,_ " but he recovers himself and moves forward much more quickly, wondering if the loud crackling he's hearing is ice or in his ears.

A foreboding crack suddenly webs out from his foot when he's only a little ways from Cas, fissures in the ice webbing out from around Cas's body, and he watches with a slow horror as the ice comes loose underneath him, pitching Cas into the water and Dean can't help himself--he lunges, hearing the sharp crack of ice giving out behind him, and he plunges his arms into the water, so cold it _burns_ , and tangles his fingers in the hood of Cas' jacket. He whimpers in exertion when the hood nearly slips his grasp, but he yanks, feeling the ice split shallowly under him, and hauls Cas up onto the ice.

"Cas? Cas, fuck no, come on--"

" _Dean!_ " Sam is roaring and the ice is coming apart and Dean is hauling Cas up into the cradle of his arms and is stinging, _radiating_ with the pain of the cold, watches the ice come apart in patches beneath them and he's running, or more like leaping, onto thicker patches of ice that won't give under their weight, but he's slipping as he runs, Cas is sopping deadweight in his arms--

He nearly stumbles backwards onto the ice when he makes the leap for shore, but Sam grabs his arm and hauls him up the slight incline, leading him up stumbling toward the bridge and saying, "Jesus fuck, Dean, I swear to God if you ever do that again--I swear to God--you almost--oh my fuck--" and Dean knows, knows he and Cas were almost gone for, knows that Cas is probably dead; the breath suddenly burns hot as fire in his lungs, and he can't feel any of his limbs.

"Cas went in," he hears himself say numbly. "He was in the water. His lips, his lips are blue--"

"Dean," Sam says commandingly, methodically. "Set him down and check if he's breathing."

All Dean can focus on is the bluish tint to Cas' mouth, the sickly papery wetness of his eyelids.

" _Dean!_ "

"Yeah," Dean says, dropping to his knees and setting Cas in the snow. "Yeah, okay--"

He presses an ear to Cas' mouth and hears cold, dead nothing, only the keening whistle of the wind.

"He's…he's not breathing. He's not breathing."

"Dean--"

"He's dead, Sam. Oh Jesus..."

"Dean, I need you to focus. You know CPR, right?"

"Yeah, yeah--"

"I'm gonna pump his chest and I need you to resuscitate him, can you do that?"

Dean nods, brokenly, and thinks, _He was an angel once, and now he's dead._

"On three, are you ready? One…two…"

Dean takes a breath, leans down, seals his mouth over Cas' cold lips and forces his breath into Cas' mouth as Sam pumps four times, and Sam counts down again, more viciously, and Dean thinks he hears one of Cas' ribs crack under the force of Sam's pressure but all he can focus on is the cold limpid feel of Cas' mouth and he wonders, perversely, how this would feel if Cas' lips were warm, alive, responsive. Wonders if he ever would've had the chance to find out.

They do this ten times, and Cas doesn't respond. Doesn't even take a breath.

Then, on the eleventh, he does.

\---

Sam is peeling down the highway, cursing whenever the Impala's wheels lose traction in the snow, and Dean has Cas' head elevated on his lap in the backseat and rubs Cas' hands between his, notes a little dazedly how they also look blue in the streetlight. The crude, wet bandage on the back of Cas' head is already pink, the wet hair around it gunky with blood.

"Is he still breathing?" Sam demands from upfront. "Check if he's breathing."

"He's breathing," Dean confirms, "but he's still out. Do--do you think he's gonna…"

"He'll make it," Sam says firmly. "He'll make it, Dean, he always does."

Sam's eyes flick in the rearview mirror, meeting Dean's briefly, before he refocuses on the road.

"He will," Sam chants quietly under his breath. "He will."

\---

It takes them fifteen minutes out of the predicted thirty for them to get back into the motel, and less then thirty seconds to haul Cas in through the motel room door and onto the orange carpeted floor.

"He probably has a concussion," Sam is saying methodically, "but first we have to warm him up. Take this and cut off his clothes, they'll be too wet to pull off. I'm going to heat up some towels."

Sam hands Dean a knife and Dean slices up through Cas' jacket and two shirt layers and unpeels them from his body, wincing at the bloody scratches that mark his ribs. He hesitantly rests his hand on the waistband of Cas' jeans, and he hears Sam snap to the left of him, "Today, Dean. We don't have time for you to be a prude."

"It's--different now," Dean sort of chokes out, and is horrified at himself for voicing it, but Sam just nods like he understands and says, much more gently, "I know, Dean, but he's going to freeze if you keep him like that longer."

Dean nods dumbly, made unnervingly uncertain by the understanding in Sam's voice, and saws through the waistband of Cas' jeans and boxers, splitting the wet denim down either leg and finally wrestling off Cas' boots and socks.

Sam moves over to help Dean lift Cas onto the bed, with Dean gathering Cas' legs and Sam hauling him up by his arms, leaving his clothes to soak on the floor. Dean's face is on fire and he doesn't know why because he's seen Cas naked before but this is different, somehow. Cas is human, tangible and _real_ , a creature of flesh and bone and blood; it somehow changes things from when this body wasn't his. Dean shakes his head and reminds himself that it's all just clinical anyway.

Sam tugs the covers over Cas and tells Dean, with a solemnity that makes Dean choke, "Take off your clothes," before he moves back to the microwave.

"M- _me_? The fuck--?"

"He needs body warmth, Dean," Sam says in exasperation. "Skin on skin. Men huddle together all the time for warmth so don't freak out about it."

"I--" Dean shakes his head. "That's like, naked-cuddling. I can't do that, not with Cas."

"You can't do it for your best friend who almost died after sweeping in and saving your ass?" Sam asks, arching his eyebrows. "Wow, Dean. I mean, like, I didn't really ever think it was homophobia that--"

"It's not homophobia," Dean retorts, shifting nervously. "I'm…I'm not like that. I'm--I just don't want to, I'm not--"

Some ridiculous part of him wants to say, _I'm not ready,_ but he can't find the words for it.

"Well, would you rather have me do it?" Sam asks incredulously, and something about that makes Dean sort of frown disgustedly in his direction. He hears Sam mutter as he takes off his jacket, "That's what I thought."

Sam starts laying warm towels against Cas' chest, over his forehead while Dean unceremoniously strips down; Sam takes one look over at Dean peeling off a fourth layer and says, as if in kindness, "I'm going to run to the general store down the road and get some heating pads and soup. You need to warm him up while I'm gone, okay?"

Dean nods and Sam leaves with another nod and a loud closing of the door.

"This doesn't mean anything," Dean tells Cas' unconscious form as he struggles out of his jeans. "You're pissed at me anyway. And I mean, why shouldn't you be?"

Dean moves around to the other side of the bed and stalls awkwardly, unsure of how to go about this, before he peels back the covers and clambers in behind Cas, his body jolting in shock at the cold clamminess of Cas' skin.

"Jesus, Cas," Dean whispers, recoiling for a minute, before he remembers for some odd reason the blue in Cas' lips and he pulls Cas' limp body against him, his muscles twitching in protest at the cold invading his body warmth. Cas sighs and shifts, the first form of movement since he'd woken up on the riverside and conked out again, and after a few moments, he starts shivering, the shudders racking his frame violently.

Dean tucks him in closer to the nooks of his body and lies to himself that he doesn't like the feeling of Cas against him, the taut lines of muscle and soft skin and dark, damp hair. Lies to himself that he doesn't want this, has never wanted this before.

Cas starts to shiver so badly that his teeth chatter, and he draws more tightly in on himself, as if trying to curl in to a center of heat.

"Shh," Dean finds himself saying. "Shh." He tucks his head against Cas' shoulder and thinks, almost wonderingly, that he'd almost lost Cas again, like he'd almost lost Cas so many times before, and imagines what it would do to him if Cas was gone, out of his life for good.

Something about that makes Dean pull Cas into him closer, and slowly, after about fifteen minutes, Cas begins to warm up, his shivering slowing and his skin sticking with sweat to small places on Dean's body. Dean drifts in and out of consciousness, placing a hand on the plane of Cas' back to make sure he's breathing every time he tunes back in.

Sam must come back at some point, because he hears a low voice talking to him, warm and soft and muffled, but Dean catches none of it; he dreams of drowning and ice and drifts.

\---

When Cas wakes up, he's enveloped in warmth, almost stiflingly so. That's really the only way to describe it; like he's being package-sealed into a sphere of heat, and he can feel the gentle push-pull of someone breathing against the shell of his ear.

He shifts and for a few panicked moments can't remember where he is, and then someone gives a quiet whimper and shifts behind him and Cas freezes in place as last night's events flood back to him.

The werewolves, the fight, _Dean,_ and then…nothing.

Cas slowly twists his head, wincing at the sharp stab of pain at the base of his skull, and starts at the sight of Dean's face half-mashed into the pillow, his lips parted in sleep. Cas is pressed so tightly to Dean that he can feel every soft rhythm of his body; the swell of his stomach sticking and unsticking against Cas' back, the steady pulse thumping into Cas' shoulder blade.

Cas peeks under the covers and feels warmth spike through him when he discovers he is in fact without clothes, and so is Dean save for a pair of plain blue boxers.

Had they slept like this the whole night, pressed against each other? Had Dean's arm been slung over his waist the entire time? For a strange, blissful moment, Cas is purely _happy,_ despite the fact that every bone in his body feels bruised or bent out of shape. The scratches on his chest sting with sweat, and it feels like one of his ribs is broken, and the pain on the back of his head pounds relentlessly; but it all seems manageable, somehow, with Dean tucked into him. Cas closes his eyes and tells himself he's dreaming; most of his human dreams consist of various positions like this involving Dean anyway, and he'd spent most of his work hours before he'd quit his job fantasizing about inappropriate situations involving Dean that sort of appalled him to a moral core, as he'd never had them as an angel and his feelings toward Dean hadn't changed when he fell except in a purely…physical sense.

Dean shifts against him with a soft, almost pained grunt, and a stab of heat radiates through him at the feeling of a very distinct _something_ poking into his lower back.

This had already gone too far.

"Dean," Cas says, and is shocked by the weak, parched rasp of his voice. He shifts, and Dean moves into him, nestling his head into Cas' shoulder. " _Dean._ "

Dean blinks awake, stares confusedly at Cas' shoulderblade for a moment before his eyes slowly drift upward and he recoils, his body breaking contact with Cas, and something in Cas sighs wistfully at the loss of it, feeling cold already.

"H--how long have you been awake?" Dean demands, a flush darkening his cheekbones, and he looks so ridiculously lovely, even in the mornings, that Cas wants to burrow down under the blankets and never escape.

"Only seconds before you woke up," Cas lies, and he slumps back down into the bed. "What…exactly happened? Where's Sam?"

Dean's staring down at his lap with a traumatized sort of expression, and it's only when Cas prompts gently, "Dean," that Dean looks up and begins to answer.

"Werewolf took you out, threw you into the river. I went out to get you before the ice cracked and…" Dean drops his eyes to Cas' mouth as if on instinct before he looks away. "We, um, had to give you CPR. Then we took you back here and…I had to, um, stay with you for warmth, I didn't--I mean, it's not like I really had a choice--"

"Dean," Cas interrupts him, not unkindly. "Thank you for saving my life."

Dean blinks as if in surprise before he nods. "It was no problem, man."

"I was perhaps foolish to take on a hunt of this size by myself," Cas murmurs, tracing Enochian patterns on the comforter, and Dean launches into, "Damn right you were _foolish._ I mean, what the hell were you thinking, Cas? Sam and I could barely handle this case, God knows what would've happened if--"

"Did you resuscitate me?" Cas asks, wondering if the sudden, vivid image of Dean staring down at him with wide, terrified eyes and a flushed mouth is indicative of anything accurate.

Dean seems to sort of mentally short-circuit at that. "What?"

"Did you resuscitate me? Or did Sam?"

Dean ducks his head again, scrubbing a self-conscious hand through his hair. "Um. I did."

"So you kissed me," Cas teases, and Dean snaps his head up defensively before relaxing slightly when he catches Cas' half-smile.

"Not technically," Dean says, his voice thick with embarrassment as he knots a loose thread on the sheets around his knuckle. "I mean, you didn't kiss me back."

Cas' smile drops; he stares.

"I didn't mean--" Dean says quickly, scrambling. "I just mean, it's, um, a little different when the other person is unconscious, you know?"

Cas is still staring.

" _What,_ Cas?" Dean says sharply, and Cas watches with fascination the color rising to Dean's face again.

"Can I ask you a question, Dean?" Cas asks, narrowing his eyes, and Dean nods as if in resignation. "Did you want me to kiss you back?"

Dean sort of balks at him for a moment before he swallows and says, "Um. I mean. It would've felt a little less creepy if--"

"Dean, answer my question."

"Your lips were blue," Dean says in lieu of an answer, ducking his head before peeking up at Cas almost bashfully. He picks at his cuticle, tearing his eyes from Cas' again. "You…I thought you were a goner, and I thought maybe I'd never get the chance to…" Dean swallows and breaks off, biting his lip. "I mean, Cas, you really fuckin'--you fucking scared the _life_ out of me."

The room is raw, quiet after Dean's confession, and Cas doesn't quite know what to say until Dean continues, more softly, "I--I thought I'd lost you. For good this time. You _need_ to quit doing that, man, seriously. I don't know how I would've--I mean…"

"Dean," Cas asks, much more slowly, carefully. "Do you want me to kiss you?"

Dean stares at him with his mouth slightly ajar, and he doesn't answer for a moment before saying, "I mean, um. I--" Dean suddenly stops as if in the light of revelation, squares his jaw, fixes Cas with a sudden intensity in his eyes that makes a thrill go down Cas' spine.

"Yeah," Dean says, and his tone says " _Screw it_." "Kiss me, Cas."

Cas rises up, leans forward and cups Dean's face in his hands, runs a gentle thumb over the crest of his cheekbone, and for a moment neither of them do anything, sharing breaths, their noses and foreheads bumping, before Cas murmurs, "Are you sure?" and Dean surges forward, taking Cas in, his mouth so warm that something in Cas heats up like a furnace, lighting him from the inside out. Dean kisses him unreservedly, deep and soft and desperate, and when Cas parts his lips on a gasp Dean's tongue gently traces the seam of his mouth. Their hands, firmly cemented to faces and necks, begin to wander until they work themselves into a frenzy; Cas finds himself on his back, dizzy with giddiness and pain and want, and when Dean starts to kiss his way down Cas' chest, Cas wheezes, "What about Sam?"

"Got a separate room for the night," Dean replies between kisses, and he slowly runs his hands up Cas's sides and Cas squirms into the touch, suddenly very and heatedly aware of the blood rushing south of his body.

"Dean," he chokes out. "Are we really--are we really doing--"

"If you want to." Dean glances up at him with sudden, almost vulnerable concern. "If...if you don't want this, I'll stop."

" _Dean,_ " Cas bites out on a growl, seized with sudden desperation, like this is their last chance to do something like this. "Believe me. I _want_ this."

Dean's eyes widen, and he stares at Cas for a few astonished moments before he leans forward to kiss Cas with fervor again.

\---

Cas is…kinda fucking beautiful like this. Dean's not one for the E.L. James descriptions--really, he's _not,_ he didn't even read that fucking book once or twice--but he doesn't really have another word to describe Cas; his cheeks are splotched with pink under Dean's mouth, his hair threaded in a hundred different directions and his eyes diluted to two thin rings of blue.

Dean sort of feels like he's been thrown into enemy territory, or maybe an ocean without a lifeboat, when he slides his hand under the covers to grasp Cas' hard cock--it's been fucking years since he's done something like this, long enough to make him nervous and self-conscious, but Cas jolts and pitches up at the contact, whimpering softly into Dean's mouth in gentle encouragement, and the rest is…easy, really, like riding a bike or shooting a gun; with hitched breath, Dean jacks him, thumbing the head of his cock and smearing the precome down his shaft, watching with wide-eyed fascination the way Cas falls apart in degrees underneath him.

"Dean," Cas warns, and throws his head back when Dean sucks a kiss into the pulse point on his neck.

"Do you trust me, Cas?" Dean murmurs, tattooing kisses down Cas' chest, and Cas nods frantically. Dean moves lower, looking up at Cas through his lashes and chewing his lower lip, and Cas seems to realize a second before what Dean's about to do because he barely manages to whisper the words, "Oh, God," before Dean shucks the sheets down and takes him into his mouth.

Cas makes a noise like he's dying and bucks into his mouth, and Dean almost chokes but he holds on as Cas stills his hips for a moment, like he's trying to regain control, and Dean teasingly slips his tongue up Cas' shaft and Cas tips his head toward the ceiling and fucking _whines._

"Dean," Cas begs, his hips beginning to piston in small circles again, and Dean's dick hardens unapologetically against the mattress because holy fuck, Cas. Holy _fuck._

Dean's head bobs as he sucks Cas down and he knows--he's good at this, he's _good_ at giving head, or so he's been told, and Cas is completely unabashed about the noises he makes, the groans and snorts and the keening whimpers. His knuckles are fisted white and pink into the bedsheets, a dark flush working its way up his chest, and he chokes on a dry sob and says, "Dean, _Dean,_ " over and over again, like a prayer.

Dean nods to show he can hear him, tonguing lightly at the head of Cas' cock and feeling Cas twitch convulsively beneath him.

Cas mumbles something in another language and spreads his legs wider, fucking shallowly into Dean's mouth, and Dean swallows around him. Cas bucks up, cries out brokenly, his toes curling into the mattress.

"I'm c-close, D--"

Dean pulls off and surges forward a bit clumsily to kiss Cas again and murmurs, "Do it, Cas. I wanna see you. Do it." He wraps his hand around Cas' cock, twists and squeezes gently, and Cas gives this strange, hitched little whimper before he comes in messy splatters against his stomach. Dean can't tear his eyes away from Cas' face, watches engrossed as Cas throws his head back with abandon, his mouth falling open as if in shock and his eyes squeezed shut, his body shaking as Dean jacks him through it.

Cas sinks down exhaustedly once he's finished and just lays there with his eyes closed, almost as if he's fallen asleep again, and Dean asks in concern, "Cas?" and Cas opens his eyes to blink at him owlishly.

"Why didn't we start doing that sooner?" Cas accuses, and Dean gives a shaky, surprised chuckle before laughing more warmly until it rocks them gently. Cas smiles briefly before his eyes dart down to Dean's boxers, widening at the way he's tenting them, and then he sits up with sudden eagerness and says, "Let me help you."

"Nah, Cas, I can take care of it--"

"Let me," Cas says demandingly, earnestly, and Dean swallows his nervousness and his doubts and rolls onto his back, nodding in invitation.

Cas is a fucking mess as he leans over Dean, his hair fucked to hell and his face raw with stubble-burn, his lips swollen red and his stomach still streaked with come, and Dean sort of groans; Cas cocks his head in interest, as if confused, and Dean tries to explain, "You're really…fucking, I mean you're really..." and fails miserably.

"I thought about you, you know," Cas murmurs, drifting lower and toying with the waistband on Dean's boxers with nimble fingers.

"What?" Dean asks, his voice already a notch higher in pitch.

"When I was with April." Cas slips his fingers gently under his waistband, and Dean gasps sharply and bucks up but Cas pulls away just as quickly, masking a satisfied smile. _Fuck,_ Dean thinks dazedly, _where did he learn to do this?_

"I thought of you the whole time I was with her," Cas confesses in a raw voice. "She was beautiful, and kind, but…it wasn't the same. She wasn't you."

"Cas…"

"When I was…inside her, I imagined it was you I was with," Cas says in a low voice, flicking glances up at Dean through his dark lashes as if suddenly shy. "The way you'd cry out my name."

Dean takes a sharp, punched-out breath and can't help but wonder, in a jolt of arousal, if this is all true or if Cas is making this up to get him going.

"I dream about you too," Cas admits, bending lower so Dean can feel his warm breath on his cock through his boxers. "I dream of you just like this, spread out beneath me, and..." Cas bites his lip, as if considering sharing the rest, before he finishes quietly, "I swallow your cock down until you beg for mercy."

"Jesus fuck, Cas," Dean whispers. "Jesus _fuck._ " His cock swells achingly hard, a small wet spot from the tip sticking to the cloth of boxers.

"I've wanted you for so long," Cas whispers, and the spaces of silence between them seem to brim with confessions now, "but not…not like this, not when I was an angel. I had…thoughts every once in a while, but it was different. Then I fell, and…I couldn't stop thinking about you. It _ached_ in me, how much I wanted you." Cas drops his head and mouths at Dean's cock through his underwear, teasingly fastening his lips around the head and sucking, and Dean moans Cas' name breathlessly and his hips twist upwards.

"It's not just sexual desire, though, Dean." Cas looks at him with wide, earnest blue eyes, and it makes him look shockingly innocent, given all that's happening. "More than that. So much more than that. I…want…" Cas frowns and licks his lips, his eyes sweeping up and down Dean's body before he locks his eyes with Dean's. "I just want _you,_ all of you."

Dean shakes his head quickly, feels something suspiciously like tears pricking at his eyes.

"I think I wanted you the moment I held your soul in hell. You were so pure, so _good_ , and you didn't ask anything in return. You didn't even see the worth in yourself, and that… _confounded_ me. I loved you fiercely then, but I didn't know it. I don't think I truly knew the feeling. And…when I realized…" Cas lowers his eyes, as if in shame. "I fought it back, weeded it out. But I never quite could. I loved you with the force of a thousand stars but I knew you would never believe me, or return it."

"Goddammit, Cas," Dean whispers, closing his eyes.

"I do," Cas says, a little bit jaggedly. "Love you, I mean. I thought it should be obvious by now."

Dean shakes his head, speechless, then nods, giving Cas all the reply and reciprocation he needs.

Cas ducks his head and noses at Dean's belly, almost shyly, before he presses a kiss to the swell there and without preamble strips Dean's boxers off him and takes him down in one quick, wet slide. Dean cries out with something mangled like Cas' name--because this, this he feels, is a long time coming--as Cas bobs his head and goes at it like a fucking pro, sucking and kissing and twisting in all the right ways, and when Dean warns him through half-sobs that he's close, Cas anchors one hand on Dean's hip as if to steel himself in place and swallows once, hard. Dean bucks up hard enough to hurt and comes down Cas' throat with a ragged, almost-sob before he collapses limply back onto the bed as Cas milks it out of him before pressing a kiss to his hip and climbing up the bed to tuck himself tiredly into Dean's side.

For a few minutes they lay there, and Dean's still trying to catch his breath, trying to wrap his head around what he just did, and with  _Cas_ no less, Cas-ti-freaking-el, former angel, and can't find any space in him for regret. He wonders if that should terrify him. Cas gently runs his fingers up Dean's torso and Dean slows his breath until their breathing is a soft, cadenced harmony, until there's no need for words.

Yet, there is.

"Cas. I can't…" Dean finally says after several moments of sleepy silence. "All that stuff you said, I…I, fuck, Cas. I don't…" _Deserve it._

"You do, Dean," Cas murmurs, sleepily. "You do."

"How do you not _hate_ me?" Dean whispers, and that strange prickly lump is back in his throat, blocking the words in his mouth. "How do you not fucking hate my guts? I kicked you out and didn't explain why, left you homeless. Hell, _I_ hate me."

"I know it had to be for a reason," Cas says, "and most likely something to do with Sam." Dean jerks in surprise at that, to which Cas adds, "It seemed the only likely explanation."

"If…if there were any way," Dean says softly, "to have you stay, I would in a heartbeat. You have to know that."

"I do know that now, Dean," Cas murmurs, softly pressing a kiss into his collarbone. "I know."

"It'll happen one day," Dean vows. "When all this angel shit is over. You can come to stay, and you won't have to leave."

Cas nods tiredly as if he doesn't believe him, and Dean isn't sure he believes himself either. There's no happy ending waiting for them, there can't be; that unspoken weight burns at him in the silence, and he knows Cas feels it too. But for now, they're Dean and Cas, curled against each other for warmth in a shitty motel room in rural Minnesota, tucked away from the rest of the world, and they hang in the balance of that moment. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Alt-J song.
> 
> I know nothing about ice tbh. Sorry if that showed.
> 
> I almost never write porn. Sorry if that showed too.


End file.
